Unbreakable (6 page)

Gwen wrinkled her nose as she saw Audrey begin to slip. "You'd better go fast, Katy! If Audrey lands on you, you're dead for sure."

"Hey!" Audrey screamed indignantly. "Shut up, Gwen. What if I land on you?"

Gwen's mouth snapped closed, and she took two large steps backwards.

Nina sniffed and bent her head to wipe tear-stained, freckled cheeks on her t-shirt. Her guts were churning and bile burned the back of her throat, but she forced herself to take a step down. A trembling foot found purchase on a lower branch and then she made herself do it again and again, not looking anywhere but at the trunk of the tree.

"That's it, Nina!" Jacie cheered her on. She sent a far more impatient look Katy's way. "Now you do that, too, you big stupid chicken!"

"You didn't call Nina a chicken," Katy complained, still refusing to move.

"That's because she wasn't stuck right below me and keeping me from getting down! Plus, I know you can climb trees. We climbed a bigger one than this last week, dummy."

"C'mon, Katy." Even though her arms and legs were wrapped around the trunk of the tree, Audrey was losing her grip. "You'd better move!" Knowing she was about to fall and crush her cousin to death, she began to cry, the sounds of her whimpers mixing with Katy's.

"I'm as b-b-brave as Evel Kneivel. I'm as brave as Evel K-Kneivel," Nina chanted as she made her way to the bottom branch.

"Here, Nina." Gwen got down on her hands and knees so Nina could use her back as a step on the way down.

Maybe it was the fact that the rest of the way wasn't very far and she was elated that she'd conquered her fear. Or maybe it was that she really, really had to use the bathroom. Nina never knew what possessed her to jump the rest of the way down. But jump she did. "G-g-g..." She never finished the word "Geronimo" as her shorts snagged on a small protruding branch and ripped clean off her body as she sailed over Gwen's back, landing unevenly in the grass and falling to her knees.

"Uh oh." Nina tried to cover herself, but nothing could keep her bright pink panties from making their presence known.

Gwen looked at Nina and started to giggle. "It's not even Tuesday, Nina!" She pointed to the word that was stitched into the cotton in fancy cursive letters and Nina flushed a scarlet red.

"I see London, I see France–" Jacie began before choking on her own laughter and having to grapple for a branch to keep from toppling over.

"What in the world?" Mrs. Chilton, who was miffed over finding her screen door hanging wide open, towered over Nina. She stared down at her and then up into the tree where Katy and Audrey were now sobbing and Jacie was laughing so hard she looked as though she was having a seizure. "Is there a good reason you're in your underpants, Nina?" she asked as she hurried over to the nearby garage and emerged with a short stepladder. "Well?" She set the ladder up at the base of the tree.

"No, ma'am," Nina answered, her fingers twisting her underwear.

Mrs. Chilton quickly grabbed Katy, who weighed next to nothing, and set her on the ground. With a deep breath and a bit more elbow grease, she helped Audrey off the tree next. "I don't understand you children," she said. "Why can't you play dolls like normal girls?" Her brow creased. "I can't reach you, Jacie Ann. You're going to have to get down on–" She was still talking when Jacie scampered down the tree and dropped onto the grass next to Nina.

Agnes blinked. "Well, then." She took in the sight of two tear-stained faces. Then her eyes flicked to Jacie, who had several bleeding nicks on her from her hasty descent, her humiliated daughter, who was trying to stretch her t-shirt over her bottom, and Gwen, who looked more frazzled than all the rest combined, and sighed. In a chipper voice she asked, "Who wants Kool-Aid?"

An hour later and safely tucked into the Chiltons' garage, the girls sat in a tight circle recounting their adventure with enthusiasm. Nina's back was to her father's black Chevrolet and sore from where the branches had poked her.

Jacie finished off her Kool-Aid, not bothering to wipe away her purple moustache. "Your mom thinks we're crazy, Nina."

Gwen nodded and Nina just shrugged. "I-I don't care. We can still play together." Her eyes got a little intense. "Sh-she said so. Even though she doesn't like t-t-tomboys."

"Cool," Katy interjected.

Gwen's face took on a thoughtful expression. "I think grownups just don't understand our club."

"I don't think they understand anything," Jacie added, picking at a scab from an old mosquito bite on her leg.

Katy set her glass down. "We won't be like that when we grow up."

"No way," Gwen agreed. "Hey, I know! Let's make a pact."

Katy's face scrunched up. "What's that?"

She'd only learned the word the week before, though she did her best to act as though she'd been born with the knowledge. "It's a promise. Let's promise to never get old and stupid."

"If you don't get old, then that means you're dead, Gwen," Jacie reminded her reasonably, still paying more attention to her leg than anything else.

Gwen frowned. She hated it when Jacie was right. Which she usually was. "Then let's promise that when we get old we'll still be friends."

"What if w-we don't l-live near each other anymore?" Nina asked, lifting the pitcher her mother had left in the garage and refilling her glass. She set it down carefully and wiped her wet fingers on Jacie's shorts.

Jacie either didn't notice or didn't care.

Gwen thought for moment. "Then no matter where we live we'll come back for a sleepover. It's the only way."

Audrey scratched her jaw. "Grownups don't have sleepovers unless they're married."

"That just shows how stupid they are," Gwen shot back. "Remember the one we had last month at Katy's house where Jacie ate too much popcorn and barfed in Nina's shoes?"

Jacie lunged for Gwen, but a laughing Nina and Katy held her back.

Gwen lifted her nose in the air and ignored Jacie, trying not to look afraid. "Let's promise then. When we're old, we'll have a sleepover."

"How old?" Katy asked, settling back into her spot after letting go of a grousing Jacie.

"Really amazingly incredibly old."

"25?" Audrey suggested.

"Older."

The girls gasped.

"40?" Jacie ventured, the thought of being that shriveled up and decrepit making her wince.

"Wow," Nina murmured. "Now that's old. That's even older than my mom."

"Okay." Gwen nodded, satisfied. "40. Let's swear."

Katy and Jacie's gazes met and they shrugged. Instantly, they hurled large gobs of spit onto their hands and held out their palms while Nina and Gwen looked on in horror.

Audrey followed her cousin's lead, but not without cringing first.

"H-how ‘bout we pinky swear?" Nina asked hopefully, her eyes pleading with Gwen.

The redhead looked so relieved Nina thought she might faint. "Good idea!" She thrust out her little finger into the air and waited until Katy, Audrey, and Jacie had wiped off their hands before crooking the digit. Then Nina had added her pinky to the mix and the girls solemnly intoned "I swear," and gave their pinkies a shake.

The deed was done.

"So, Nina," Jacie started, her eyes sparking with humor. "What color are Sunday's panties?"

Nina blushed again and the other girls snickered and hooted, starting the "underpants" song all over again.

*  *  *

Present Day
Town & Country, Missouri

"Mrs. Langtree?" A large hand waved in front of her face. "Where'd you go?"

Gwen's eyes snapped up and she shook her head a little as she handed the manila folder back to Ted Gramercy. He looked a little guilty for jolting her out of her thoughts.

"I'm sorry. I drifted off there for a moment." The late afternoon sun peeked through the thin white blinds in the main office of Gramercy Investigations, painting stripes across Gwen's yellow silk pantsuit. She moved a little in the chair, her backside numb from sitting there so long. She handed back the folder and the reports she'd spent the past hour reading. She felt like a voyeur for looking in on her old friends' lives this way. But one of them, at least, had left her little choice. "I can't believe you found them all so quickly."

The tall man sat back in his chair and his lips curled into a pleased smile. "It's always someone close."

"I didn't want to believe it could be one of them," Gwen broke in emphatically. Then she drew in a measured breath to calm herself. "It's not easy to accept that one of the people you loved so as a child is now blackmailing you." Her grip on the email in her hands tightened.

He gently cleared his throat and gave his client what he hoped was a suitably sympathetic look. It was one he'd cultivated over the years after having to tell many a wife and husband that their spouse was indeed cheating. "I'm sure it isn't, Mrs. Langtree. Should… umm… I understand that you want to keep this quiet, but the best way to deal with blackmail is the police. They're the best–"

"No."

He reached out to comfort her. "I'm sorry I–"

Gwen gave him a wan smile. "I have another plan in mind. One that doesn't risk my life going up in flames quite the way going to the police would."

He removed his hand, noting the determined eyes looking back at him. "And does Gramercy Investigations fit into this plan?"

For an answer Gwen reached into her Louis Vuitton purse and extracted four blindingly white envelopes, each one closed by a gold seal. "I want you to hand deliver these to each of the women you located, including Audrey in Utah. I need to know with absolute certainty that they received what's inside these envelopes. And I don't want them being returned to the house if something goes wrong with the post office or a courier."

He nodded, turning the square envelopes over in his hands. "You're inviting your blackmailer to a wedding?" he ventured, unable to curb his curiosity.

Gwen rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Not to a wedding. Though those are invitations. I need to find out who is doing this and put a stop to it before it's too late. They'll all come…." Her voice gentled and nearly dropped to whisper. "No matter what happened, they promised." She swallowed thickly but quickly regained her composure. "You see I'm the oldest of the bunch and I'm having a birthday next month."

Ted Gramercy blinked slowly, still clearly bewildered.

The corner of her mouth quirked. "In a few weeks I'll be really, incredibly, amazingly old."

He whistled through his teeth. If Gwen Langtree were what old ladies looked like nowadays, he was barking up the wrong tree with younger woman.

She stood to leave. "I'm going to be 40."

Present Day
St. Louis, Missouri

K
ATHERINE EMERGED FROM her kitchen, licking chocolate icing from her index finger. There was another loud rap at her door. "Hang on a sec. I'm coming." Absently, she padded across the room, her mind focused more on her upcoming date and the brownies she'd broken down and bought at the supermarket that afternoon than on who could be knocking.

She peered through the peephole to find a tall, but non-descript man in a ubiquitous blue blazer, white shirt, and wrinkled, beige Dockers standing in the hall. He smiled brightly, knowing she was looking at him, and she found herself smiling back, despite the fact that she figured he was here to sell her something she didn't want and couldn't afford even if she did want it. She unhooked the chain and opened the door, stepping out into the hallway.

"Katherine Schaub?" he asked hopefully, producing an envelope from the breast pocket of his jacket.

Automatically, she extended her hand to take it. Then, abruptly, the smile disappeared and the blood drained from her face. She yanked her hand back as though the envelope was on fire. "I'm being served?" she shrieked, her hand coming to throat. "No fucking way! I am not Katherine Schaub. Never heard of her."

"Bu–"

She jumped back into her apartment and jerked the door closed, only to come up short when the man inserted his foot in the doorway.

"Ouch!" he hissed as the wood collided with this shoe, and his face turned red from pain. "Jesus."

Katherine hesitated, instantly feeling guilty for hurting him but then thought better of it and began to kick his shoe. "Get out! I paid my credit card bill." Her kicks moved to his ankle. "Don't you people ever give up?"

"Wait!" His face contorted in pain. "God almighty!" He stuck his arm out to hold the door and snatched his foot away, shaking it wildly and wincing. "I'm not a process server. I swear." His eyes begged her to believe him.

"Who are you then?" she asked, her eyes narrowed warily. Suddenly she wished she hadn't spent so many late nights watching all those A&E shows about serial killers.

When she appeared to calm a bit, he took a step backwards into the hall and put what he desperately hoped would be a safe distance between them.

Katherine audibly exhaled.

"I'm Ted," when he saw her eyes widen he quickly added, "not Bundy, by the way. He got the electric chair years ago."

She didn't appear convinced.

"Uh... Okay. I've been hired to give you this envelope." When her mouth flew open and she shot him a glare that had him worried she was going to kick him right in the balls, he held up a hand to forestall her. "I promise it's not a summons."

"Really?" She couldn't help but be skeptical after he'd refused to let her shut her door. "You're just a delivery guy?"

"I'm just here to deliver an invitation, honest to God."

Against her better judgment she took the envelope, rolling her eyes when she heard him let out a relieved breath. "Sorry about your foot." She shrugged as though the entire incident had been completely out of her control. "Let me get my purse. I–"

"No need for a tip," he said quickly, not giving her a chance to do or say anything further before he disappeared back down the hall.

Katherine flipped the envelope over in her hands, examining it curiously as she shut the door and made her way back to her sofa. It was addressed to "Katy," letting her know that whoever had sent it had to be someone who knew her very, very well or someone who didn't know her at all and had inadvertently used the diminutive from her childhood.